I remember, when I was in college, hearing other students discuss “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” a famous speech (1963) and essay (1964) by Richard Hofstadter. I was not interested in politics then and paid little attention; but I can testify to the respect these smart students gave Hofstadter’s thoughts. I just assumed they […]

The Reading Wars, astonishingly enough, continue to rage. Rudolf Flesch explained the problem in 1955, in his famous book titled “Why Johnny Can’t Read.” Many other smart people have explained the problem again and again. But still our schools persist in using precisely the bad methods that Flesch discredited. In particular, the schools make children […]

Rudolf Flesch published “Why Johnny Can’t Read” in 1955. It was a big success and remains one of the best-known books in American history. In that book Flesch explained the illiteracy crisis in the United States. Had the people in charge of education listened, he might have faded into history. Ironically, the fact that our […]

Lenin asked his famous question in 1901: “What is to be done?” Today in education, that question remains as hot and urgent as an oncoming hurricane. The Education Establishment has spent 100 years making public schools dumber. That’s a common impression which, after years of research, I could finally explain. John Dewey and his colleagues […]

Many people, confronting the mediocrity and malaise of the public schools, are dumbfounded. Why have things gotten so bad? As long ago as 1983, a government report said that our schools seem to have been designed by a hostile foreign power. More recently, 2007, Bill Gates led a commission which concluded that the public schools […]

[Summary: Education has two basic components: Content and Form. All the rest is tinsel and trivia. Indeed, it often seems that irrelevant debates are created so that nobody focuses on the essentials. The Education Establishment doesn’t want you to see the obvious formula for success: teach important stuff; and teach it well.] A poem, a […]

Many wonder why American public schools are so dysfunctional. Study American public education and you will probably reach a point where you are reluctant to look further; because you have started to sense just how perverse the field is, and how destructive many of its practices are. Throughout the 20th century, the Education Establishment devised […]

Think of a detective investigating a crime scene. He moves tensely, searching for clues. The detective does not know what happened, and must deduce it from many little signs and traces. He can never relax–he might miss that crucial spot on the carpet. Finally, after years of trying to understand Whole Word (a/k/a Sight Words, […]

Bill Gates said public schools are so bad they are a threat to the national economy and the society’s long-term survival. What should we do? Gates and, it seems, every group in the country is eager to offer policy recommendations that are supposed to fix education. Are they the answer? Or only a distraction? These […]

Background: Nobody knows what the heck is going on. Even the country\’s leaders–the movers and shakers in business, politics and the community– don\’t seem to grasp what is happening inside the public schools. Who can explain why there are so many methods that don\’t work as promised? Try to find even one doctor, lawyer, stock […]